Jonny69's home brewed banger build

I posted this up on another forum and it was well received and someone mentioned it would go down well on here. So I joined up and there's a bit about my two cars in the New to the HAMB section.

About a month ago the engine in my black Pop expired. It was kind of expected because it had stood for about 15-20 years before I had it and I just put some petrol in it, cranked it over and it ran. Well it was getting slowly worse, lots of noise from the top end and it was weeping a bit of water. Then I took it on a long run on the motorway and the obviously very perished rear seal gave up and I was losing oil out the back.

The decision was taken to convert it to a later lump, out of a 100E Anglia because it's a fairly easy swap onto the original gearbox and it's free extra horsepower for the same displacement, 1172cc. Plus I had one that was overbored, cammed, flowed and breathed on and it was going to liven the car up quite a lot. Given a bit of time I realised I really haven't got enough time to do it when my 105E Anglia needs some time so a quick change of plan and I decided to work the original lump. It would all need a rebuild anyway so it's not much more to slip in a cam, do a bit of flow work and get the head ground down for some more compression. I can do most of that at home, I'll build it up old style!

So I'll be needing some vintage speed equipment. Aquaplane inlet manifold, check:



Aquaplane exhaust manifold, check:



Twin carbs, check:



A trolley full of junk parts, check:



And now I need to do much head scratching because everybody who knows anything about these engines is now dead so I'm pretty much on my own! I didn't think of coming over here looking for flathead tech...

Saturday afternoon me and a mate hoiked the old engine out the car. Literally took the radiator out, took the grill shell off the front of the car and lugged it out with a tow rope and a chunky luggage strap. This is the offending item:



I have a spare engine I picked up for £30 that I'm using as a test bed. I was hoping it might be a runner but it has had water in it and the valve guides are shot but it's a good block to experiment on:



That's half a shopping trolley it's sat in, they make great engine trolleys. Please note: Sainsburys charge £1 for their trolleys but they are free at Waitrose. I stole mine from Sainsburys because I feel by not charging me Waitrose has trusted me not to steal their trolleys. I will honour that trust. Sainsburys on the other hand has made me feel like a petty theif so I honoured that too and nicked their trolley. And very nice it is too.

Here's my hot 100E engine. Head off and I'm going to be taking the cam out as it's the same fit for both engines. This one is a re-ground high lift item:



First on the priorities is to increase the compression. These old engines have super low compression so they can run on ultra low grade petrol. The Pop engine is 6:1 and the later 100E engine is 7:1, both are too low really and it can be increased by machining the head down. With the extra lift of the cam I need to be sure that the valve isn't going to come into contact with the head if I start machining the face, because it's going to decrease the height of the chamber:



I've measured it in the 100E block and it comes to 9.5mm, direct lift from the cam so it will be the same in the other engine. Next because the inside of the chamber is rounded at the top I need to know I have enough clearance at the sides of the valves when they are open:



Here's checking the standard lift, I measured to be 7.35mm so my reground cam is quite bumpy in comparison:



I discovered something interesting. Earlier engines were only 950cc and had a smaller combustion chamber to suit the lower displacement. The stud pattern on the head is the same throughout the range so an easy way to get some more compression I figured is to use an early head on a later engine. Also I'd have to take some 4mm off the metal which is going to make it very thin and probably prone to cracking. The early head would only need about 1mm maximum thus leaving me plenty of metal left.

Here you can easily see the difference, it's about 1/3 smaller which will instantly take it up from 6:1 to around 7.5:1 I worked out. Early head is on the left, later one is on the right:



It's a lot more shallow so I have to check I will have enough clearance once the face is ground. It comes in somewhere between 10mm and 9.5mm so it's going to be close once the headgasket is on.:



I'd also better check it's the same width in case the valves don't fit in across. All ok, the valves are 58mm across and the chamber is over 61mm:



On the chamber on the right hand side where I've cleaned it up you can see there is a bulge either side of the spark plug hole. I am going to get this machined down so that it is flush. That way I can take a bit more meat off the face of the head and hopefully get it up to about 8:1 compression which is plenty for a sidevalve:



Ooh I'd better quickly check it actually fits on the studs, phew that's a bit of luck!



So here's a shot straight down on the bore on my spare engine. I'm going to be doing some flow work here to improve the efficiency. There's a sharp edge on the side of the bore and the plan is to round that off in the area under the combustion chamber. This is an old well proven trick from years gone past which I've seen in Rod and Custom etc and and I am going to follow that advice. Gas flows over a smooth curve easier than it does a sharp edge, it's quite simple:



So it's too much for me now, I need to see a mockup...





And finally I decided to get the head off the engine I'm going to be using. This is a matter of clubhammering the hell out of it, driving wedges in the side, wriggling and more hammering. It gets well rusted onto those studs. Here I've numbered the valves so they all go back in their correct holes. I'll be regrinding them but it helps if they go back where they came from:



So tomorrow I'll be talking to my mate who is going to grind the head and a week later I should be able to fit it. This week with a bit of luck I'll be cleaning it up, flowing it and screwing it back together

 

First mechanical disaster

I was trying to get the distributor out but it was stuck fast. The securing screw was a slotted screw and it was rusted in so because it's now a spare head I drilled the top off the screw. Still couldn't get the dizzy to move so did the routine of dousing it in WD40, wriggled it, nothing, more WD, tappity tap tap with a clubhammer, bit more tapping and it appeared to come free but was a bit wobbly and I still couldn't pull it out the head.

Last night I resorted to a hydraulic press. Just as well I did because it was pump pump pump, any minute now, pump pump pump, oh come on pleeeeaaaase... pump pum*BANG!* and it shifted about 3mm. Then pump pump pump *BANG*, pump pump pump *BANG* and it finally dropped out.

As I suspected I broke the casing from tapping it a bit too keenly:



So I won't jolly pain in the backside about with the other one, I'll just put it straight on the press

Shame because this is a good dizzy and the other one will need the guts transferring from this one.

 

Very cool. Any pictures of the car it's going in?

 

On with the build...

First task is to get the old head studs out. I would have to hammer the head back on because they are rusted and bent and I don't want that so I'm going to replace them with shiny new straight items. I was a bit worried about shifting them but the oldest trick in the book worked on all of them so I was happy. Basically wind a nut on the thread, hold it with a spanner and crank another nut onto it really tight. Then 99% of the time you can undo the whole thing with the bottom nut:



To get the nut back off is a matter of mole grips round the stud and undo the nut:



Luckily it was only the last one that was REALLY tight and mangled up:



Now I want to take the valves out. I had to buy a slim valve spring compressor to do this because the springs are incredibly small in this engine and my old one wouldn't go in. Normally what you've got is a retainer at the end of the valve with a pair of tapered collets that hold it on the end of the valve. You compress the spring and the two collets pop out and you can withdraw the spring. It's a bit different on this engine because the end of the valve is tapered itself and the retainer has a slot cut out of one side and you have to pull it out with pliers. It's fiddly and requires a bit of brute force:



You have to jam the compressor between the bottom two coils of the valve spring:



Then grab the retainer with a pair of needle nose pliers:



Then pull the valve up like the top picture and get a hold of the spring with pliers and yank it out:



The valve then doesn't just come out because it's tapered at the end so it won't fit through the valve guide. This took a bit of head scratching but the valve guide is in two pieces and is pressed into place. One has to drift it out with a special tool, or in my case a clubhammer and a couple of screwdrivers. This is what it looks like when out:



I spotted a flow improvement opportunity here. Take a look at this very poor photo and you can see the top of the valve guide protrudes right into the port, semi blocking it up:



Well I'm not having that, so it's going on the lathe and it's coming off. There's still plenty of length on it to support the valve so that's free extra flow to me.

Lining up the valve springs I spot a little inconsistency:



Apart from the fact that they are about as strong as radio controlled car springs they are all different lengths so I will replace them all for uprated items. There is no way the standard items will be able to cope with increased revs, these ones are destined for a pair of spring loaded shoes or something.

One major annoyance is that this engine has solid cam tappets and you can't adjust the valve tolerances. To reduce the gap you have to grind the valve seats to make the valve drop down a bit and to increase the gap you have to get the end of the valve stem ground back. This means that as it stands I can't use my high lift cam because I will need different length valves and the process of getting them to the right ground length isn't something I can do at home, which goes against the aim of this project. Luckily Small Ford Spares do aftermarket adjustable tappets which is a lifesaver, by no means cheap, but it means I can use the cam afterall! Phew!

After a quick cleanup I can see that the surface of the block is good, the valve seats are all in good condition despite being used with unleaded fuel and the pistons are in good condition. There was hardly any carbon in there at all and the bores are in very good condition. All good news.



Final job was to flip it upside down and strip the block bare. Took the sump off, removed the flywheel and timing cover and started scraping all the old gaskets off. I'll be taking the cam, crank and pistons out next so they don't get contaminated with grinding paste or any of the muck when I start relieving the bore edges, then it's out with the power tools to do the fun bit. Mwahahahahah!!!!!

 

Finished stripping the engine. Took the cam, crank, oil pump and pistons out now so it's a bare block. Tomorrows job is to get some Gunk and give it a damn good clean all over then I can do that grinding. I think I might give it a paint after all, for the sake of a fiver in paint while it's out in bits...

So when you take a cam out and you haven't got a manual it's a good idea to take a note what way round it goes in. The easiest way to do this is to turn it so the no.1 piston is at top dead centre (TDC) on its firing stroke and make a mark with some white paint, or in my case some Tippex which I stole back when I was working at Marconi. That was a long time ago but I still steal things:



It's also a good idea to mark your pistons so they go back in the right bores, this saves you having to re-balance the engine but more importantly the bottom ends go back on the right crank journals. So make sure you also keep the big end shells round the right way and with the correct conrod:



With a bit of luck over the weekend I'll also get to take a grinder to the block and relieve it where I deem fit, then next week I just have to order some bits and get it assembled

Edit: by the way I don't read The Mail, it was in the recycling bin downstairs and I needed a paper to soak up any excess oil...

 

Jumped straight in at the deep end this afternoon and got on with the relieving around the bores. Popped the headgasket in place and secured with a couple of head studs:



This is so I can mark around the edges so I know where to grind and where not to as the chamber in the head is reasonably tight around the area:



Scratched my marks in with the tip of a chisel and removed the gasket and I was left with this on each of the bores:



Took the bulk of the meat off with a grinding disc on the angle grinder which made pretty light work of it and was left with this lovely rough edge to clean up with a half-round hand file:



Which left me with this lovely smoothed run into the bore rather than a sharp step. I gave it a quick lick over with some 400-grit wet and dry just to take the file marks out and all was done:





It's a bit difficult to see in the photos but it's about 5mm down from its original position and will let the piston suck in quite bit more as the sidevalve design is quite flawed. Then I gave it a good old wire brush, a clean down with Gunk followed by water, washing up liquid and a rinse, same with the sump which was lined with slime.

Went against my normal rules and fired on a coat or two of fire engine red, won't get much time tomorrow but I will be able to sneak in a few extra coats of paint

 

Sooooooo my bandwidth got caned and all the old images on my website went dead ;D

No worries because I made like a gypsy and moved in on someone else's land as such. Yeah I'm stealing some webspace temporarily...

So here's what I've been up to. Got on the lathe on a Tuesday night courtesy of a particularly generous bloke I know and turned down all the valve guides. Had to swap on the 4-jaw chuck to get a hold on them because they are in two halves but after a bit of setting up progress was good and I'm happy with the results.



Before, after and, er whoops:



Broke one of them so I'll have to pilfer one out the spare engine. Cast iron I think and it's like machining something between glass and china. I'll cut the remaining one by hand since it's not critical how square they are, I just want them recessed out the way.

I also got my head back. Nice bit of work, bit expensive but NOOOOOOOO! he's taken too much out the chambers! Ah well I guess I didn't explain it to him properly. I asked him to cut the base of the chamber down flush and I think he took it a bit too literally and cut right into the slope in the end of the chamber:



The bit between the two dark areas is supposed to be a nice smooth curve but now it's a deep step. Well I ummed and arrrrred about it quite a lot today but I think the only real solution is to add some metal back on. This is what the head looks like though, nice skim:



So this metal-on mod. This is going to involve welding to cast iron which is brittle. I decided the best way to do this is to get the head hot and weld it hot so the concentrated heat buildup isn't as high as if the head were cold. This will reduce warpage and reduce the likelyhood of it cracking. So the SWMBO is out tonight which is a piece of luck because I'm banned from bringing car parts in the flat let so please no-one let her know I've been sticking them in the oven.



225 degrees for 30 minutes until smoking nicely, which it did and the flat smells like it's been on fire. Severly. In the meantime I stuck the thick wire in the MIG and ran a couple of test beads on a spare head. When I was happy with the results I ran up and grabbed the one out the oven, ran down with it in my welding gloves (choking on the smoke and yeah it was bloody hot!) and zapped in a couple of runs of weld to fill the gap:



This is what I was left with after a quick wire brush. Once the head cooled down I thought I might un-shroud the sparkplug a bit. It sits right in the thread and is practically covered so I reckoned a good healthy chamfer would come in handy, get that flame front moving a bit quicker like:



Then while I was working on the ports in the block I gave the head a few licks of paint, red again:



Followed this with a rather nice shish kebab, chips and a few glasses of wine while I watched California Kid

 

Someone kindly designed me a book cover - I love it!!!

 

The final box of goodies landed on my desk. Some adjustable lifters, timing chain, head studs, valve springs and an engine mount. I shall ignore how much that cost...

Didn't get round to doing much this weekend but had second thoughts about the welds in the head. Took my comically underpowered cheapo fake Dremel to the welds and cleaned them up. Got through loads of wheels, grinding stones, a miniature burr and managed to destroy both the cheap brass collets and the arbors that the grinding wheels mount on. Never mind, it made a good job of them and here's my mate Chris lending a hand:



Little did he know he'd later end up in hospital with a chunk of this in his eye. It had gone rusty so they had to dig out not only the chunk of metal but a piece of his eye where the rust had set in ;D

So there's my safety tip for today folks, when you do this make sure you squint...

 

I got in the ports with the cut down valve guides and boy does it make a difference. With the stock pointy ones the port is really blocked up but with the cut down jobbies you can stick your finger in the port and out the valve hole!

Meanwhile continuing my kitchen theme I took some pictures of the goodies that turned up before the weekend. Here on the microwave we have the valve springs:



The one on the left is the uprated one, it's about 3/4" longer than the original and a lot stiffer. This is good because it'll put a lot more preload on the valve when it's shut and prevent any blowby with the increased flow and compression. This was a problem even in standard form because I could turn some of the valves on their seats with the end of my thumb. This said to me they weren't very tightly closed.

They came in the most awesome dog eared box pictured here on the chopping board next to the courgette:



Finally, and apparently hovering over the dishwasher is one of the adjustable tappets next to an original solid one. They were expensive but when you see the amount of work in them you do have to wonder how they did them at that price:



They will adjust right out so can accomodate the extra lift on the cam and will make doing the clearances much easier than grinding the valve stems or seats.

These will be the last lot of pictures until I get back off holiday unfortunately but the aim is to get it back in and running ready for the Nats. Will probably use the standard intake and exhaust manifolds at first then upgrade to the Aquaplane bits when I have time to fettle the linkages and rebuild the carbs. Clock is ticking...

 

And all that was about 2 weeks ago...

Progress since I got back off holiday yesterday...

Knocked a pair of valve guides out my spare engine and turned them down on the lathe so now I have a full set. Next up is lap the valves in and start re-assembling

 

"Sainsburys charge £1 for their trolleys but they are free at Waitrose. I stole mine from Sainsburys because I feel by not charging me Waitrose has trusted me not to steal their trolleys. I will honour that trust. Sainsburys on the other hand has made me feel like a petty theif so I honoured that too and nicked their trolley."

This is possibly the best logic I've heard in a long time...thank you.

 

These little engines are basically almost Model B's, shrunken a bit and with the blueprints reversed...guides, timing pin, etc. pure Ford.
Have you seen the old English book on building Ford based Specials?

 

Hi Bruce, yup it's like a miniature B engine but for some reason not quite as good I know about that book now - I probably could have done with it a few weeks ago but it looks like I'm not too far off what's in there.

Woo nearly missed you all the way up there. Yeah it's going in my otherwise standard ratty Pop or Anglia to you American guys:







It's basically a completely bone stock barn find with cable drum brakes, 4.5x17 tubed tyres, vacuum wipers and tatty looking in and out. I've replaced or refurbed everything underneath, added a 12V alternator to replace the 6V system and 12V halogen pre-focus bulbs in the original light shells. The bodywork and structure doesn't need touching but all the mechanicals needed a bit of TLC. Was using it as my daily driver until the engine expired and I thought it would be rude not to breathe on the engine when it was out

 

Next time you're poking at the thing, could you post pics of the distributor??
I've heard that actually fits an A or B, and have always been curious about them. I have yet to find one...all the Anglias over here seem to have been delivered with Chrysler Hemis, for some reason...

 

Yeah no probs. I've got to trash I mean strip the spare one so I'll take some pics and measurements as I go. Boy am I not looking forward to trying to get those rusty screws out

There aren't many about though, I tried to find one on eBay, ads etc but no luck.

 

Well...IF the interchange works (and turns CCW), you could use one of a number of Mallory Model B ones or a stock Model B. I've also heard that late 8N For/Fordson?Ferguson tractor ones, listed usually as "side distributor", may fit B's, and those are available new repro...but again, I have not found a cheap example to verify anything.

 

Valve grinding was last night's job. It's been a while since I last did this and I remember it was one of those jobs to put off because of the blisters and bruised hands that follow. Anyway enough of my complaining and on with the build...

My local spares shop had this old timey tub of valve grinding paste sitting on their shelf for what looked like about 50 years. I bought it over a decade ago and it sits on my shelf becoming history awaiting my next engine build. You use so little of it I doubt I will ever get through it!



You get coarse paste at one end and fine at the other. To apply it you need a stick with a sucker on the end which you can get for about 50p from any good spares shop or alternatively Halfords does one which comes with two little tubs of grinding paste for £2.99:



The paste is like grease with grit in it:



And you apply it with a mucky finger:



You do this with the springs off so the valves are free to move. Apply some coarse paste to the valve seat and stick the sucker to the top of the valve:



Then twizzle the stick back and forth between your palms, lift the valve out, turn it round a bit, repeat and so on until you've taken the valve and seat back to clean metal and there is no pitting:



Then repeat with the fine paste which takes the surface down to a smooth finish and clean it all off thoroughly:



Mine were particularly bad so this took me about 2 hours all in, plus the valve guides drop out so I had to put all the valve springs in to hold them in. I did a simple test to see if it had worked. I pressed down on the valve lightly with my thumb, puckered up and blew into the port as hard as I could. No leaks!

Today my hands are bruised to hell but surprisingly no blisters

 

The later 100E sidevalve can take a Rover Metro distibutor which has electronic ignition so no more breaker points and a cap you can buy at any local spares shop. You just swap the drive dog on the bottom of the shaft and on it goes but I haven't been able to check if it fits the hole of the earlier E93A engines. When I measure up I'll compare the heads and we should know for sure.

 

Awsome man, simply awsome, great post and a metric fuck ton of information, and a bitchin project. *applause*

 

Jonny - just seen the post and the work is awesome - Like you my engine went pop but I took the 'easy' route and dropped a 1800 zetec in - Keep up the good work and keep the information coming - James

 

I posted up a reply on the other Forums Johnny mentions,mainly to do with the head machining he had done..Any other flattie people else got any ideas regarding Quench you can share here?.
I believe he needs to spend a lot more effort of ensuring as close as possible piston crown to head measurement as possible to get a better "squeeze".
He also needs to 'CC' his block.These engines run rough and every little bit to smooth them out increases the size of the few horses available.
The bottom ends on these little engines are also white mettled but in the UK there are plenty of places you can get them done for a reasonable price.
There was ,at one time a class of racer in the UK called the '1172' ( engine size in CC.s) and those engines had a lot of development mirroring that of the banger movement in the US. Early lotus's used the same engine.

 

Bruce,it's a common Lucas dissy ( model number escapes me ) ,They were fitted to EVERY english four cylinder car regardless of make.
Myself,I wouldn't waste time on them because of the bushes ,points ,advance mech, in fact anything that moves in them wears ...quickly.
it was a common mod down here to sort out the trembler coils on the model T and the dissy on the A to make them run a bit reliably.

 

Yeah I read it all with interest but like I said it's not a race engine so I'm not taking it that far, just doing the little things I can do at home on a small budget for a bit more pep. At the end of the day if it's a problem I'll just do another head as they are quite abundant. Hey I have 3 spare ones to play with

 

Cool thread man. Keep it coming!

 

Enjoying this great thread...should be in the TECH section soon!

 

Great thread.

 

Note so far the dearth of expensive services from machinists and exotic parts...just an Okie Valve Job, clever parts swapping, homebrew antidote to the banger builders who believe a specialist and a blank check (Cheque?) are needed to build a banger capable of leaving the driveway safely. Memories of my first valve job...and little Clover paste can with the same two-sided construction...

 

As a banger fanatic I am loving this thread - Awesome work and from now on I may start calling my vise grips mole grips. The shop I used to work for recently brought a stock Anglia in to turn it into a (gag) street rod. I think I am going to go over and take a look at the distributor this afternoon. May even be able to pick up the entire stock drivetrain. Not sure what I would do with it but I guess it would make a neat modified.


Later- Reece